Improve officiating – give nets “the finger”, again!

Yesterday in Eastbourne Naomi Broady hit a serve to Monica Puig that was called a let.  Broady complained to the umpire that the ball passed well over the net  and was not a let.  The umpire responded that she had no choice but to go with the call made by the net cord sensor.

This sort of incident has been quite frequent ever since people with their fingers on the net cords were replaced by net cord sensors.  The net cord sensor is what is called a “piezoelectrical device” that produces an impulse when it vibrates.  The problem, I think, is that the kind of vibrations that set it off can come from sources other than direct contact between the passing ball and the net cord.

When I play doubles and I’m at the net while my partner serves, it’s not unusual for the ball to pass close to my ear as it heads for my opponents’ side of the court.  These “near misses” produce a shock wave of air that I can feel very clearly.  When a pro serves, the ball is moving much faster than in my club matches, so it’s logical to assume that this shock wave of air is far more pronounced.  What I think is happening with the automatic net cord sensor is that when a pro serve passes very close to the top of the net, the shock wave it produces is sufficient to give the net a little shake that is picked up by the sensor.

The net cord is a metal cable covered by vinyl.  In the old days, lets were detected by a person who sat aside the court with his finger on the net cord.  The vibration of a metal cable that is hit directly by a ball feels characteristically different from a shudder that might occur from a shock wave of air created by a ball passing close to the net.  As a consequence, it’s my opinion that the finger on the net discriminates between the “vibration” and the “shudder” better than the mechanical device.  I believe the sensor is calling lets when the ball passes close to the net but does not touch it.   The other possibility, of course, is that the sensor is detecting lets with better fidelity than ever before, and that the players are simply wrong when they think the ball has missed the net completely.  If that is true, we must conclude that the old “finger on the net cord” method was missing let calls. 

            This issue could easily be researched, and if it turns out that the sensor is too sensitive the device might be modified.  However, the easy thing to do is just bring back the people and use the finger method again.  Things mechanical aren’t always better than the human touch.  If the finger method is missing lets so slight that they’re not perceptibly changing the flight of the ball, the only practical result would be fewer let calls, fewer player complaints, and matches slowed less often by let calls.  Given the fact the some former stars are proposing that all lets be played out anyway, this scenario hardly seems disastrous.  So I propose that we give nets “the finger” again and end player suffering!